"Life
sentence, eh? Then your name's--what is it again?--Hackh, isn't it?
Heywood's mine. So you take Zimmerman's place. He's off already, and
good riddance. He _was_ a bounder!--Charming spot you've come to! I
daresay if your Fliegelmans opened a hong in hell, you might possibly
get a worse station."
Without change of manner, he uttered a few gabbling, barbaric words. A
coolie knelt, and with a rag began to clean the boots, which, from the
expression of young Mr. Heywood's face, were more interesting than the
arrival of a new manager from Germany.
"It will be dark before we're in," he said. "My place for the night, of
course, and let your predecessor's leavings stand over till daylight.
After dinner we'll go to the club. Dinner! Chicken and rice, chicken and
rice! Better like it, though, for you'll eat nothing else, term of
your life."
"You are very kind," began Rudolph; but this bewildering off-hand
youngster cut him short, with a laugh:--
"No fear, you'll pay me! Your firm supplies unlimited liquor. Much good
that ever did us, with old Zimmerman."
The sampan now slipped rapidly on the full flood, up a narrow channel
that the setting of the sun had turned, as at a blow, from copper to
indigo.
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